天上掉餡餅

　　1、A history of long and effortless success can be a dreadful handicap, but, if properly handled, it may become a driving force. When the United States entered just such a glowing period after the end of the Second World War, it had a market eight times larger than any competitor, giving its industries unparalleled economies of scale. Its scientists were the world's best, its workers the most skilled. America and Americans were prosperous beyond the dreams of the Europeans and Asians whose economies the war had destroyed.

　　一段長時間并且不費力而成功的歷史可能成為一種可怕的不利因素，但若處理得當(dāng)，這種不利因素也有可能轉(zhuǎn)化為一種積極的推動力。二戰(zhàn)結(jié)束后，美國恰好進入了這樣的一個輝煌時期，當(dāng)時，它擁有比任何競爭者大8倍的市場，這使其工業(yè)經(jīng)濟具有前所未有的規(guī)模經(jīng)濟。美國的科學(xué)家是世上比較優(yōu)秀的，它的工人是比較富于技術(shù)的。美國的國富民強是那些經(jīng)濟遭到戰(zhàn)爭破壞的歐亞諸國做夢也無法達不到的。

　　2、It was inevitable that this primacy should have narrowed as other countries grew richer. Just as inevitably, the retreat from predominance proved painful. By the mid-1980s Americans had found themselves at a loss over their fading industrial competitiveness. Some huge American industries, such as consumer electronics, had shrunk or vanished in the face of foreign competition. By 1987 there was only one American television maker left, Zenith. (Now there is none: Zenith was bought by South Korea's LG Electronics in July.) Foreign-made cars and textiles were sweeping into the domestic market. America's machine-tool industry was on the ropes. For a while it looked as though the making of semiconductors, which America had invented and which sat at the heart of the new computer age, was going to be the next casualty.

　　隨著其他國家日益強盛，美國的這一優(yōu)勢地位逐漸下降是不可避免的。從優(yōu)勢地位上退出的痛苦也同樣是不可避免的。到了80年代中期，面對其日益衰退的工業(yè)競爭力，美國人感到不知所措。面對國外競爭，一些大型的美國工業(yè)，如消費電子產(chǎn)業(yè)，已經(jīng)萎縮或漸漸消失。到1987年，美國只剩下Zenith這一家電視生產(chǎn)商。(現(xiàn)在一家也沒有了：Zenith于當(dāng)年7月被韓國LG電器公司收購。)外國制造的汽車和紡織品正在大舉進入國內(nèi)市場。美國的機床工業(yè)也即將滅亡。人們曾一度感覺下一個在海外品牌面前全軍覆沒的似乎該輪到美國的半導(dǎo)體制造業(yè)了，而在新計算機時代有著核心作用的半導(dǎo)體正是美國人發(fā)明的。

　　3、All of this caused a crisis of confidence. Americans stopped taking prosperity for granted. They began to believe that their way of doing business was failing, and that their incomes would therefore shortly begin to fall as well. The mid-1980s brought one inquiry after another into the causes of America's industrial decline. Their sometimes sensational findings were filled with warnings about the growing competition from overseas.

　　所有這一切導(dǎo)致了信任危機。美國不再視繁榮為理所當(dāng)然之事。他們開始相信自己的商業(yè)經(jīng)營方式不靈了，也相信不久他們的收入也會因此而下降。80年代中期，人們對美國工業(yè)衰退的成因作了一次又一次的探尋。在美國人那些有時聳人聽聞的發(fā)現(xiàn)中充滿著對其他國家日益增長的經(jīng)濟競爭的警告之詞。

　　4、How things have changed! In 1995 the United States can look back on five years of solid growth while Japan has been struggling. Few Americans attribute this solely to such obvious causes as a devalued dollar or the turning of the business cycle. Self-doubt has yielded to blind pride. "American industry has changed its structure, has gone on a diet, has learnt to be more quick-witted," according to Richard Cavanaugh, executive dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "It makes me proud to be an American just to see how our businesses are improving their productivity," says Stephen Moore of the Cato Institute, a think-tank in Washington, D.C. And William Sahlman of the Harvard Business School believes that people will look back on this period as "a golden age of business management in the United States."

　　情況的變化真快!1995年，當(dāng)日本還在奮力拼搏的時候，美國卻可以對5年的穩(wěn)固發(fā)展作一回顧了。沒幾個美國人將這一巨變單純歸因于美元貶值或商業(yè)周期循環(huán)這些顯而易見的原因。到如今，對自身的懷疑已被盲目樂觀所取代。“美國的工業(yè)已經(jīng)改變了結(jié)構(gòu)，消除了滯脹，學(xué)會了明智”，這是哈佛大學(xué)肯尼迪管理學(xué)院行政院長理查德•卡佛納的看法。華盛頓特區(qū)的智囊團——卡托研究院的史蒂芬•莫爾說：“看到我們的企業(yè)正在提高自身的生產(chǎn)率，作為一個美國人，我感到自豪。”哈佛商學(xué)院的威廉•薩爾曼相信人們將會把這一時期視為“美國企業(yè)管理的黃金時代”。

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